When recognising the workers’ right to join a union, Eric Danziger, the chief executive of Donald Trump’s hotel chain Trump Hotels, said in a statement: “We share mutual goals with the union, as we both desire to ensure outstanding jobs for the employees.”

Nonsense!

Trump recognised the workers’ union because he was forced to do so.

Unlike many hotel developers in Washington, the Trump Organisation fought unionisation as long as it could.

Because tourism is central to the economic health of Washington, the city’s government gives many hotel developers subsidies to build or renovate.

The subsidies come with a condition, though — thanks to tough, persistent lobbying of Unite Here Local 25, the US union to which many hotel workers belong — hotel managements must not interfere if their employees want to join a union and bargain collectively.

However, the subsidy Trump received to turn an old federally owned building — Washington’s old Post Office — into a hotel carried no such condition.

Because he could, during his hotel’s construction, he refused to promise that he would allow his permanent hotel employees to organise.

So about three years ago, hotel workers began almost weekly demonstrations in front of the construction site. One of their leaflets read:

“He hasn’t committed to middle-class wages or fair working conditions for the men and women who will clean rooms and cook meals at his hotel.

“Wonder why we have growing inequality? This is how it happens: billionaires who are more concerned with posh than with people and expect the rest of us to play along.”

Still, Trump refused to pledge he would recognise a union if his employees chose on.

Then he decided to run for president.

Throughout the campaign, he repeatedly made clear how anti-union he is and even went so far as to insult leaders of the steelworkers.

Shortly before the election, the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) found Trump guilty of violating federal labour laws by refusing to recognise a union at his Las Vegas hotel, another Unite Here branch.

Still, Trump refused to bargain with the union. Instead, his corporation appealed against the decision.

Late this past December, however, the Trump Organisation abruptly change course.

It agreed to recognise the union its employees had voted to join in Las Vegas and agreed to allow its employees at its new Washington hotel to conduct a union election without interference.

A few weeks ago, the Washington workers, about 40 housekeepers and guest-room workers, voted to join Unite Here.

Why did Trump do such a fast about face?

John Boardman, executive director of Unite Here Local 25, was quoted in the Washington Post as saying: “I have been trying to parse out in my own mind on what might have motivated the Trump Organisation to do this and I haven’t quite figured that out.”

Most observers, however, say that Trump changed because of two reasons: now that Trump can appoint his own members to the NLRB he wanted to settle his own case to avoid what would be an absolutely obvious, undeniable conflict of interest.

But first and foremost, Trump recognised the right of his Washington workers to join a union because they and their allies from unions across the country forced him to do so.

Two distinct processes have emerged in the month since the inauguration of Donald Trump. Millions of people in the United States and internationally have participated in protests against the fascistic policies of the new government. They are motivated by genuine and deeply felt anger over the administration’s attack on immigrants and its cabinet of billionaires and social reactionaries. At the same time, much of the media and major sections of the political establishment have been carrying out an escalating campaign against Trump that is of a very different character. In close coordination with US intelligence agencies, Trump’s establishment critics are seeking to hijack the opposition of workers and youth to Trump and channel it behind their own imperialist and militarist agenda: here.